Trump records a 3-hour interview with Joe Rogan about the election, Harris and whales

In a highly anticipated interview, Donald Trump touched on a wide range of cultural and political issues Friday night in an three-hour conversation with Joe Rogan, who hosts one of the biggest podcasts in the world.

The recording went on so long that Trump arrived several hours late to his rally that night in Traverse City, Mich. Frustrated at having to wait so long, many people left.

The Rogan interview is a continuation of Trump turning to nontraditional media outlets, including podcasts, in the weeks leading up to Election Day. Rogan also invited Vice President Kamala Harris to do an interview, but her campaign has declined. Rogan’s podcast has more than 17 million YouTube subscribers.

Much of the interview, which was put online around 10 p.m. Friday night, was rehashed commentary Trump has expressed throughout the campaign.

He said the war in Ukraine would never have happened if he were president, complained about moderators not fact-checking Vice President Kamala Harris enough during her one debate with Trump, blasted the traditional media, did things like continue to frame Harris and Democrats as more dangerous than foreign foes and dabbled in conspiratorial talk about the 2020 election being stolen.

Rogan at one point asked Trump to provide examples of how the 2020 election was stolen, as he has long falsely claimed. Trump gave a largely rambling answer that touched on election law changes that he said did not get proper legislative approval.

“They were supposed to get legislative approval to do the things they did, and they didn’t get it,” Trump said, referencing changes that made it easier to vote during the height of the pandemic.

Trump, who is running for his second White House term and would not be able to run for a third term if he wins, said it would be his last election “if I win.” He was noncommittal on whether he would run again if he loses.

“If I win, that’ll be, this will be my last election,” he said. “But I think I owe it to the country. We have to have fair elections.”

Trump has made baseless claims about the 2020 election being stolen a key part of the campaign’s message through the 2024 election, even though he admitted in September that he lost the race to President Joe Biden by a “whisker.”

Trump’s campaign rhetoric has increasingly grown hostile in the final weeks of the election, with threats to do things like jail his political opponents and strip broadcast licenses from media organizations he opposes becoming more regular topics at campaign rallies.

It has led his opponents to cast Trump as someone who has dictatorial instincts, something highlighted over the past week when his former chief of staff John Kelly told The New York Times that Trump fits the definition of a fascist.

“I was actually the opposite of a dictator,” Trump said Friday, defending himself. “I was a very straight guy.”

Trump also told Rogan that he has learned a lot about UFOs.

“There’s no reason not to think that Mars and all these planets don’t have life,” Trump said.

Rogan quickly corrected him about life on Mars.

“Mars, we’ve had probes there and rovers, and I don’t think there’s any life there,” Rogan said.

“Maybe it’s life that we don’t know,” Trump responded.

Rogan at one point also seemed to try and catch Trump from praising confederate general Robert E. Lee, whom Trump has talked fondly of in the past. Without specifics, Trump said that generals he talks to think Lee was a “genius.” At that point, Rogan chimed in asking Trump to clarify that he only meant “strategically,” which Trump concurred.

Later in the interview, Rogan seemed to foreshadow the fact that Trump’s Lee comment could get him criticized.

“Donald Trump wishes the South won,” Rogan said, mimicking what he thought the criticism might sound like.

“The Joe Rogan Experience,” which launched in 2009, is of one the most popular podcasts in the United States, particularly among young men.

The episodes, which are usually hours-long, feature a wide array of guests from various industries, including entertainment, sports, tech and politics.

Rogan, a former stand-up comedian and host of “Fear Factor,” has built a robust following as an unlikely political pundit. But his popularity has been coupled with years of mounting criticism — the host has faced accusations that he had spread Covid misinformation, used a racial slur and made antisemitic comments on his show.

While he has not shied away from political topics, Rogan has not issued any official endorsements this election cycle.

In August, Rogan said on his podcast that he was a fan of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., but later clarified in a post on X that he wasn’t endorsing the then-independent candidate. Kennedy Jr. later dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump.

Vice President Kamala Harris had also been in talks to do an interview with Rogan but it didn’t pan out. Ian Sams, a spokesman for her campaign, told MSNBC on Thursday, “We talked with Rogan and his team about the podcast, unfortunately, it isn’t going to work out right now because of the scheduling of this period of the campaign.”

Trump, who is notably not known as a humble person, seemed to acknowledge the importance of being on Rogan’s podcast, at one point referring to himself as “a student of yours.”

On the environment, Trump said that environmental regulations are “the biggest tool to stopping growth,” and continued to attack his long-running nemesis, the windmill, for what he said is its harmful impact on wildlife. In this case, Trump said he was worried about the impact of windmills on whales.

“I want to be a whale psychiatrist,” he said. “It drives the whales freaking crazy if something happens with them, but they’re getting washed up and yet the environmentalists they don’t talk about, right?”

He also continued to personally assault Harris, calling her “not smart” and framing her as a bigger threat to the nation than even foreign advisories.

“If she becomes the president of the United States, which I can’t believe can happen,” Trump said. “I don’t think this country is going to make it.”

Trump has increasingly called Harris “stupid” and during a Thursday night rally in Las Vegas, he said her policies would “kill thousands of people.”

Yet on Friday, Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky issued a letter calling on Harris to tone down the rhetoric. They argued that Trump could face a third assassination attempt as the result of heated campaign talk.

“Labeling a political opponent as a ‘fascist,’ risks inviting yet another would-be assassin to try robbing voters of their choice before election day,” the two wrote.

The letter did not mention that Trump has applied that term to Harris on multiple occasions.

As the third hour of the interview approached, Trump said he realized he needed to get to a scheduled rally in Michigan, which he was late for because of the length of the Rogan interview.

“I’ve got to go make a great speech,” Trump said. “And If I’m a little off tonight, I’m going to blame you.”

Matt Dixon

Matt Dixon is a senior national politics reporter for NBC News, based in Florida.

Daysia Tolentino, Julia Jester, Abigail Brooks, Alec Hernández, Jake Traylor, Emma Barnett and Raquel Coronell Uribe contributed.